[Vietnamization] Dams, Climate Change Lead to Fish Decline in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap: Fishermen

Dams, Climate Change Lead to Fish Decline in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap: Fishermen

RFA | 4 September 2015

Fisherman fish illegally in Lake Tonle Sap, Cambodia, June 4, 2015.  RFA

The fish population in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap lake has declined significantly from a year ago, fishermen in the country’s Kampong Chhnang province said Friday, citing the construction of dams in the area and climate change, among other factors.

Shortages have led to an increased price for fish in the region, making it harder for residents to put food on the table or make prahok, the fermented fish paste that is a staple of the Cambodian diet, according to Sim Sopanha, a member of the provincial Fishing Network nongovernmental organization.

“Villagers can barely catch any fish,” he told RFA’s Khmer Service, adding that although fishermen have made a collective effort to only use sustainable methods, such as rods and legal nets, to ply Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, the population has still declined.

“The fish have been affected by hydroelectric dam construction and climate change, causing their numbers to drop,” he said.

The Tonle Sap, a combined lake and river system that swells in the rainy season, has supported fishing communities living in floating villages of moored houseboats for generations. Many villagers depend on fishing for subsistence and their livelihoods.

Sim Sopanha did not provide details about which dams were responsible for the decrease in fish or specify how climate change had affected the population.

But he said he disagreed with the provincial Fishery Department’s assessment that an increase in fishermen working the Tonle Sap had led to the decline.

“A report from the Fishery Department says there are too many fishermen [on the lake],” he said.

“However, the children of many fishermen have immigrated for work [overseas], so I am confident the fish numbers are declining [due to other reasons].”

Other factors

Other fishermen on the Tonle Sap told RFA that illegal catching methods, flooding and increased immigration of ethnic Vietnamese to the region had contributed to the fall in the lake’s fish population.

They also said new settlers to the area had been cultivating flooded forests that traditionally have served as fish spawning grounds.

[Vietnamization] The Tonle Sap: Cambodia’s Beating Heart

Background:

The Vietnamization of Kampuchea: A New Model of Colonialism (Indochina Report, October 1984)

Part II: Vietnamization of the Economic Framework (continued)

The Unequal Exchange

        

It is within this new institutional framework that the Vietnamese are asserting their hold over the economy and future of Kampuchea.  Fisheries, rubber and rice are the three main sectors affected by what should be termed the Unequal Exchange between Vietnam and Kampuchea. 

As for fisheries, a cooperation accord was signed on 20 January 1984 between Phnom Penh's Ministry of Agriculture and Hanoi's Ministry of Marines Products.

During his visit to Phnom Penh, the Vietnamese Minister Nguyen Tien Trinh has pledged to provide "all kinds of assistance to the PRK's Ministry of Agriculture, including fishing tools and moral, maternal and technical aid for building fishing sites and shrimp boats for sea fishing, in order to develop the Kampuchea-Vietnam solidarity in fisheries."  On this occasion, Khmer Minister of Planning Chea Soth curiously expressed the confidence that "with the assistance of the Vietnamese delegation, Kampuchea's fisheries will soon make progress!"

        

In reality, what is this accord about?  Behind all the redundant jargon, the agreement serves only to sanction the near monopoly of the Vietnamese over the fisheries resources in Kampuchea, and in particular in the Sea-Lake area (Tonle Sap).

 . . .

A boy untangles his family fishing net in the village of Akol.

Image Credit: Luc Forsyth

The Tonle Sap: Cambodia’s Beating Heart

The Tonle Sap is Southeast Asia’s largest lake and Cambodia’s main source of protein, but all is not well on the Great Lake.

The Diplomat | 2 March 2016

Luc Forsyth and Gareth Bright have set out on a journey to follow the Mekong river from sea to source. The Diplomat will be sharing some of the stories they’ve found along the way. For more about the project, check out the whole series here.

Following the Tonle Sap river further inland to the massive lake of the same name, we spent several days on a floating research station as we explored the area’s floating villages, interviewed fishermen, and learned about the great challenges facing the Tonle Sap.

* * *

The Tonle Sap is known to be one of the world’s most productive freshwater ecosystems, but all is not well. Photo by Gareth Bright

[Demographic Vietnamization: Tonle Sap, Fishing] No Criminal Charges Filed in Six-Month Fishing Crackdown

 Background / related:

Tonle Sap

No Criminal Charges Filed in Six-Month Fishing Crackdown

The Cambodia Daily | 19 July 2017

A six-month crackdown on illegal fishing in the Tonle Sap lake region netted hundreds of thousands of meters of illegal gill nets and scores of batteries used in electrocution fishing, but not a single criminal charge in more than 1,500 cases, the government reported on Tuesday.

A report released by the Agriculture Ministry says officials foiled 1,553 cases of illegal fishing in the lake and its tributaries, seized 704,432 meters of illegal gill nets and 274 batteries used in eco-disruptive electrofishing methods.

Interior Minister Sar Kheng and Agriculture Ministry officials meet in Phnom Penh in April to discuss the ongoing crackdown on illegal fishing on the Tonle Sap lake. (Siv Channa/The Cambodia Daily)

[Vietnamization, Tonle Sap] Fishing Communities Struggle as Rivers Ebb

 [Background / related]

 Tonle Sap

The Vietnamization of Kampuchea: A New Model of Colonialism (Indochina Report, October 1984)

Part II: Vietnamization of the Economic Framework (continued)

The Unequal Exchange

        

It is within this new institutional framework that the Vietnamese are asserting their hold over the economy and future of Kampuchea.  Fisheries, rubber and rice are the three main sectors affected by what should be termed the Unequal Exchange between Vietnam and Kampuchea. 

As for fisheries, a cooperation accord was signed on 20 January 1984 between Phnom Penh's Ministry of Agriculture and Hanoi's Ministry of Marines Products.

...

A passenger stands on the foredeck of a ferry as it crosses the Mekong river from Arey Ksat to the main city in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, July 1, 2016.

Fishing Communities Struggle as Rivers Ebb

VOA | 17 September 2016

According to a report by the Global Nature Fund, the Tonle Sap is considered one of world’s the most threatened rivers.

PHNOM PENH — 

Fishermen living along the Tonle Sap river and the Mekong tributary system are increasingly concerned for their livelihoods, as fish catches have dropped drastically in the past decade.

Each year the Tonle Sap lake – known as the “beating heart” of Cambodia – gives life to one of the world’s most productive water ecosystems as the lake swells to several times its dry season size.

But many living along the river that snakes south of the lake and support themselves through fishing now say they are unable to support themselves as they once could.

Eng Kim Chhour, head of the fishing community in Kompong Svay district, Kampong Thom province, says in the three decades in which he has fished from the river things have never been so bad.

“Before I could find from 50 to 60 kilograms [of fish], some days it reached 100 [kilograms]. These days, I can find only 4 or 5 kilograms. Prices of goods has increased; we don’t really earn enough and our kids are growing and have to attend school,” he said.

[Demographic Vietnamization: Tonle Sap, Environmental Destruction, Fishing, Svay Pak, Criminal Elements] Fleeing Sewage, Houseboat Fleet Floats Into Phnom Penh

[Background / related]

Svay Pak CNN videos

Tonle Sap

[Demographic Vietnamization, Kampong Chhnang, fisheries] ជន អន្តោប្រវេសន៍ វៀតណាម កាន់តែ ច្រើនឡើង កំពុង បន្តរស់នៅ និងប្រកប របរនេសាទ នៅខេត្ត កំពង់ឆ្នាំង | not a word of Khmer spoken, flooding of Vietnamese fishing families, mcerchants in Kampong Chhnang 

The Vietnamization of Kampuchea: A New Model of Colonialism (Indochina Report, October 1984)

*****

Fleeing Sewage, Houseboat Fleet Floats Into Phnom Penh

 The Cambodia Daily | 3 May 2017

Hundreds of floating houses have been snaking down the Tonle Sap river to central Phnom Penh over the past few days, fleeing what one boat owner described on Tuesday as an influx of sewage that killed a massive amount of fish.

“All the fish died, and the water turned smelly and black,” said Mann Ream, 65, who has been farming fish in cages beneath her floating house since 1979, when she relocated to Phnom Penh’s Kilometer 7 neighborhood in Russei Keo district. “It smelled like sewage.”

Black water that smells of sewage flows into the Tonle Sap river 9 km north of downtown Phnom Penh in Svay Pak commune on Tuesday. (Brendan O’Byrne/The Cambodia Daily)

Towed by boats, the flotilla of wooden houses has been slowly making its way along the river since Sunday. As Ms. Ream and dozens of other fish farmers who also live above their stock guided their homes under the Chroy Changva bridge on Tuesday at lunchtime, hundreds of people crowded against the railing and along the riverbanks to watch and take photographs of the unusual sight.

For Ms. Ream, the trip downriver has been a costly inconvenience.

When her fish started dying on Sunday, Ms. Ream could have lost up to 6 million riel, or about $1,500. She saved hundreds of dollars by selling the already-dead fish for a little less than half the price of live fish.

Sewage has killed the farmers’ fish stocks before, and the hundreds of families who farm in the Tonle Sap at Kilometer 7 used to guide their homes downstream once every few years, according to Ms. Ream, who estimated between 200 and 300 floating houses had joined the latest exodus.

But the problem has grown worse in the past three or four years as the capital has expanded and sewage treatment systems have failed to keep pace. In recent years, boat owners have had to move two or three times a year due to fish deaths, sometimes for several days at a time, Ms. Ream said.

According to Taber Hand, a researcher who has studied fisheries on the Tonle Sap and Mekong River for more than 20 years, fish deaths like this are often the result of untreated sewage being pumped into the river.

“The black water sucks out oxygen because of the high biological oxygen demand” of microbes that feed on the sewage, Mr. Hand said. The problem is exacerbated after heavy rains flood the city’s sewage systems, pushing their contents into waterways, he said.

When black water began seeping under her home on Sunday, Ms. Ream suspected the most recent flush of sewage came from 2 km north of the boat’s usual spot, in Svay Pak commune.

Mann Ream squats next to fish cages in the center of her house on the Tonle Sap river in Phnom Penh on Tuesday. (Brendan O’Byrne/The Cambodia Daily)

Reporters who visited the riverbank in Svay Pak on Tuesday saw a stream of black water, about 5 meters wide, that smelled strongly of sewage. It flowed between wooden homes raised on stilts, making its way directly into the Tonle Sap. A pool of black water formed where the stream met the river before it faded into a greenish-blue hue.

[See

[Svay Pak, the epicenter of child trafficking in the Southeast Asian nation. 

["Svay Pak is known around the world as a place where pedophiles come to get little girls," says Brewster, whose organization, Agape International Missions (AIM), has girls as young as four in its care, rescued from traffickers and undergoing rehabilitation in its safehouses....

[Svay Pak, a dusty shantytown on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, is at the heart of this exploitative trade.

[As one of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in one of Asia's poorest countries – nearly half the population lives on less than $2 per day -- the poverty in the settlement is overwhelming. The residents are mostly undocumented Vietnamese migrants, many of whom live in ramshackle houseboats on the murky Tonle Sap River, eking out a living farming fish in nets tethered to their homes.]

[See also

Every Day in Cambodia -- WATCH THIS EXTREMELY DISTURBING CNN video of Svay Pak [where at one point, 100% of children born there were trafficked]

Every Day in Cambodia

CNN | 23 March 2014

Mira Sorvino (5:45): Many are sold as virgins by their own parents. As we walked along the dirt road, Don points out a table of men playing cards.  He say they're there every day.

Don Brewster (5:52):  Instead of caring for their family or working, they sit there every day gambling, drinking all day because they traffic kids, including their own.

Mira: Their own?  They traffic their own children?

Don: Others, not just their own. ... They think they're untouchable.

Mira:  Do they even speak English?

Don: No, no.  Most of them speak Vietnamese.

[Demographic Vietnamization: Tonle Sap, Fishing, Pollution, Kampong Chhnang] Cambodia to remove floating river villages

[Background / related]

See Vietnamization: Tonle Sap

Sam Rainsy video: ជន អន្តោប្រវេសន៍ វៀតណាម កាន់តែ ច្រើនឡើង កំពុង បន្តរស់នៅ និងប្រកប របរនេសាទ នៅខេត្ត កំពង់ឆ្នាំង | not a word of Khmer spoken, flooding of Vietnamese fishing families, merchants in Kampong Chhnang 

See Vietnamization: Kampong Chhnang

...

One of the floating villages in Kampong Chhnang destined to be closed. (Supplied photo via Khmer Times)

Cambodia to remove floating river villages

 Khmer Time / Bangkok Post | 24 March 2017

PHNOM PENH - Thousands of families living on the Tonle Sap river in Kampong Chhnang province will be relocated in an effort to curb water pollution.

Provincial governor Chhour Chan Dern said five floating villages in three different locations along a stretch of the river cause environmental pollution and damaged the river’s ecosystem.

“All floating villages have to be relocated to dry land and all permanent settlements built on the water will be banned,” he said.

Mr Chan Dern said provincial authorities would relocate all five of the floating villages, however they are encouraging residents to leave the river voluntarily, according to a report by the Khmer Times.

“But first, we’ll relocate a floating village in the Phsar Krom area in Kampong Chhnang City as a model in order to clean up and develop the waterfront area,” he said.

Mr Chan Dern did not say when authorities would take action to remove the villages, only saying the relocation was being carried out in accordance with the law.

“Previously about 300 families decided to relocate to dry land from the floating village in the Phsar Krom area and about 800 families are still here,” he said.

He added that it would get worse if provincial authorities kept ignoring the issue.

“If we don’t begin to remove them from the river, what will the river be like in 10 or 20 years? They will be everywhere. It will really damage the river’s ecosystem,” Mr Chan Dern said.

[Demographic Vietnamization: Tonle Sap] Threats to Tonle Sap Lake outlined at start of Mekong River Commission summit

An aerial view of the Chong Kneas floating village and a number of traditional arrowhead-style fish traps exposed by record low water levels on the Tonle Sap Lake in Siem Reap province in 2016. Over 80,000 people live directly on the lake, and experts say their livelihoods are at risk. Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon

Threats to Tonle Sap Lake outlined at start of Mekong River Commission summit

Phnom Penh Post | 2 March 2018

SIEM REAP – A warning about the increasing threats to Tonle Sap lake, one of the world’s richest freshwater fisheries and a vital source of food for Cambodians, offered a sobering start to the third summit of the Mekong River Commission in Siem Reap on Monday.

[Demographic Vietnamization: Tonle Sap] Support given to Vietnamese expats living on Tonle Sap Lake

The Vietnamese government delegation presents gifts to needy families living on Tonle Sap Lake on September 15 (Photo: VNA)

Support given to Vietnamese expats living on Tonle Sap Lake

 Vietnam Plus | 15 September 2017

Phnom Penh (VNA) – A Vietnamese government delegation on September 15 visited Vietnamese expatriates and Cambodians in Kampong Luong commune of Kro Ko district, Pursat province, which is located on Tonle Sap Lake of Cambodia.

The delegation, led by Deputy Foreign Minister Vu Hong Nam, presented needy families in the locality with more than 800 gift packages.

Nam affirmed that the Vietnamese Party, State and people always pay attention to overseas Vietnamese and poor Cambodians, especially those living on Tonle Sap Lake, and want to help them address difficulties.

Through this fact finding trip, the delegation will suggest the Vietnamese Government and call on businesses to increase investment in this area, which will help enhance the two countries’ cooperation and assist Cambodia to attain the targets of economic development, social stability and environmental protection, he added.

During their visit to Cambodia from September 11 to 17, the Vietnamese delegation is scheduled to tour provinces bordering Tonle Sap Lake and the coastal province of Preah Sihanouk to seek investment and business opportunities for Vietnamese firms.-VNA

[Demographic Vietnamization] Floating Villages on Cambodia's Tonle Sap Are Being Scuttled

  [Background / related]

Demographic Vietnamization

 

Hanoi created an elaborate blueprint for moving ten million people from the more densely populated north to the south by the year 2000. - [Chapter 9: Habits of War, p. 355]

The Nguyen Vietnamese settled their newly acquired Khmer territory in a manner that, again, has echoes in modern affairs. First they allowed their least desirable elements to open the territory--vagabonds, deserters, and those banished from their villages... [Now, also sex-traffickers... watch CNN's report "Every Day Cambodia"] The state then selected formal settlers to farm the land and build new villages [reason why the Hun Sen CPP blatantly criminalized Sam Rainsy for shedding light on the problems in Svay Rieng]... Finally, demobilized soldiers were given land grants in the territory in return for their military service [p. 333]...

See also CAMBODIA: A Shattered Society

Tonle Sap 

...

A floating house on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, Sept. 2016. RFA/Chin Chetha

Floating Villages on Cambodia's Tonle Sap Are Being Scuttled

RFA  | 1 September 2016
 

Thousands of ethnic Vietnamese living in the floating villages that dot the Tonle Sap are being repatriated to Vietnam as their livelihood drains away and they can’t come up with the documentation needed to stay in Cambodia, RFA’s Khmer Service has learned.

While hard numbers are difficult to come by, VietnamNet reported that 5,000 ethnic Vietnamese families who had been living in the floating villages are now living in Vietnam.

A group of Vietnamese still living in the floating village in Kampong Chhnang’s Svay Chrum Commune told RFA that while they were born in Cambodia they are leaving because environmental damage to the Tonle Sap has decimated the fishing and they can’t prove their residency in Cambodia.

[Vietnamization: Tonle Sap, fishing, Kampong Chhnang] After Brief Clash, 40 Arrested in Illegal Fishing Crackdown

[Background / related]

Tonle Sap

[Demographic Vietnamization, Kampong Chhnang, fisheries] ជន អន្តោប្រវេសន៍ វៀតណាម កាន់តែ ច្រើនឡើង កំពុង បន្តរស់នៅ និងប្រកប របរនេសាទ នៅខេត្ត កំពង់ឆ្នាំង | not a word of Khmer spoken, flooding of Vietnamese fishing families, mcerchants in Kampong Chhnang 

The Vietnamization of Kampuchea: A New Model of Colonialism (Indochina Report, October 1984)

Part II: Vietnamization of the Economic Framework (continued)

The Unequal Exchange

It is within this new institutional framework that the Vietnamese are asserting their hold over the economy and future of Kampuchea.  Fisheries, rubber and rice are the three main sectors affected by what should be termed the Unequal Exchange between Vietnam and Kampuchea. 
As for fisheries, a cooperation accord was signed on 20 January 1984 between Phnom Penh's Ministry of Agriculture and Hanoi's Ministry of Marines Products.

...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng walks to a helicopter in a photograph posted on the Agriculture Ministry’s Facebook page.

After Brief Clash, 40 Arrested in Illegal Fishing Crackdown

The Cambodia Daily | 26 January 2017

A government task force charged with curbing illegal fishing on the Tonle Sap lake caught 40 fishermen after they briefly clashed with authorities on Tuesday evening over the seizure of their illicit gear, officials said on Wednesday.

Nao Thuok, secretary of state at the Agriculture Ministry, said about 80 police, military police and fisheries officials aboard speedboats seized three trawlers after descending on a fishing area in Pursat province’s Krakor district at about 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

The fishermen—armed with axes and knives—attempted to fight back, and officers “shot about 10 or 20 bullets into the air to scare them,” Mr. Thuok said. The 40 fishermen were sent to the Pursat Provincial Court on Wednesday.

Agriculture Minister Veng Sakhon, Interior Minister Sar Kheng and National Police Chief Neth Savoeun surveyed the sprawling lake by helicopter on Wednesday as a part of monthly inspections. Mr. Sakhon said they saw evidence of widespread illegal fishing activity.

“We can see a lot of illegal fishing gear, such as tiny mesh nets in the lake, especially in Kompong Chhnang, Kompong Thom and Pursat provinces,” Mr. Sakhon said.

[Vietnamization] Cambodia: Why Tonle Sap is world's most threatened lake

[Background / related]

Tonle Sap

The Vietnamization of Kampuchea: A New Model of Colonialism (Indochina Report, October 1984)

Part II: Vietnamization of the Economic Framework (continued)

The Unequal Exchange

        

It is within this new institutional framework that the Vietnamese are asserting their hold over the economy and future of Kampuchea.  Fisheries, rubber and rice are the three main sectors affected by what should be termed the Unequal Exchange between Vietnam and Kampuchea. 

As for fisheries, a cooperation accord was signed on 20 January 1984 between Phnom Penh's Ministry of Agriculture and Hanoi's Ministry of Marines Products.

During his visit to Phnom Penh, the Vietnamese Minister Nguyen Tien Trinh has pledged to provide "all kinds of assistance to the PRK's Ministry of Agriculture, including fishing tools and moral, maternal and technical aid for building fishing sites and shrimp boats for sea fishing, in order to develop the Kampuchea-Vietnam solidarity in fisheries."  On this occasion, Khmer Minister of Planning Chea Soth curiously expressed the confidence that "with the assistance of the Vietnamese delegation, Kampuchea's fisheries will soon make progress!"

        

In reality, what is this accord about?  Behind all the redundant jargon, the agreement serves only to sanction the near monopoly of the Vietnamese over the fisheries resources in Kampuchea, and in particular in the Sea-Lake area (Tonle Sap).  Since the beginning of 1983, all fishing activities in this area have to be registered at the local "Production Office" (Phong Tang Gia), which provide all the necessary tools such as boat motors, gas and nets, in exchange for 90 per cent of the catch.  Thus, the Rear Services and Supply Department of the Vietnamese occupying forces collects some 50 tones of fish (of the 150 tonnes daily catch) which are then distributed to all the units stationed in Kampuchea.  Besides, 60 tonnes of fish are sent daily by cargo ship to Chau Doc, My Tho, Can Tho, and Saigon.  Recently, the Vietnamese Authority set up cold storage facilities in Kampuchea to reduce losses in storage and processing.

...

Cambodia: Why Tonle Sap is world's most threatened lake

Environmental damage and climate change are threatening the lake which is often described as Cambodia's "beating heart".

Al Jazeera | 30 July 2016

With its rich and diverse ecosystem, Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake is often described as the beating heart of the country, supporting the livelihoods of more than one million people and attracting visitors from across the region.

Yet, climate change and man-made pressures are affecting the lake, resulting in a drastic reduction in its fish stocks and worrying low water levels.

Earlier this year, the Global Nature Fund designated it as the world's most "threatened" for 2016.

"In recent years, the water volume continuously declined with negative impacts on fish migration and the import of sediments," GNF said in a statement.

"In some places in the Tonle Sap Lake, the water level dropped more and more in the dry season and wetlands dried up permanently. Beyond that, illegal fishing methods, like poison, explosives and small-meshed nets are often used."

'I gave up'

For years, fishermen have earned a living from the lake's waters, which spread across 16,000 square kilometres.

But things have changed recently for people like Bun That, whose family have been fishing for generations.

"For the past several years, the catch got less and less and I couldn't feed my family," he said.

"So I gave up and looked for work as a taxi driver."

In 2016, the region saw an unprecedented drought but - according to officials - environmental factors and man-made effects pressure were mainly to blame.

The lake is vital for the region, and for a part of the population it is their only option to survive. 

If the current situation continues, many may have to find other ways to earn a living.